I wish in my conference w/ him to refer not only to this question in terms of its national but also in terms of the international importance of the Negro people, particularly with regard to Africa and our strategic relation to the Chinese and Indian peoples just now.110
Indeed, on the same day, Yergan had in fact wired this to Stephen Early:
TELEGRAM YERGAN TO STEPHEN T EARLY
SECRETARY TO THE PRESIDENT
EARNESTLY REQUEST APPOINTMENT WITH YOU TOMORROW OR FRIDAY IF YOU CAN GRANT IT, REGARDING LARGER ASPECTS NEGROES AND WAR AND PROPOSED DELEGATION TO THE PRESIDENT
MAX YERGAN
PRESIDENT
NATIONAL NEGRO CONGRESS111
Again, a Yergan White House telegram immediately garnered high-level attention, more perhaps than he ever realized. Secretary Early, as if facing an office blaze, requested assistance straightaway. Yergan may have even unwittingly exacerbated matters when his initial wire was not answered as expeditiously as he had expected. He reflexively sent a second cable to FDR’s secretary, Maurice McIntyre: “REFERENCE MY TELEGRAM FEBRUARY EIGHTEENTH MR STEPHEN EARLY AS FOLLOWS EARNESTLY REQUEST APPOINTMENT WITH YOU TOMORROW.”112 The combined effect of conveying two urgent telex messages to Oval Office watchdogs in as many days probably ranged somewhere between constituting a nuisance and posing a menace to U.S. national security. McIntyre, taking no chances, hastily contacted the head of the Works Progress Administration, as a handcrafted addendum coyly disclosed: “MHM called Aubrey Williams to check on this man + outfit + was informed ‘not reputable.’”113 All the while, it seemed essential to maintain the appearance of a more routine approach to the entire matter. After all, presidential staffers received communications exactly like this every single day. Seen superficially, McIntyre’s reply looked rather matter of fact:
WIRE JUST RECEIVED. MAY I SUGGEST YOU WRITE ME FULLY REFERENCE MATTER YOU WISH TO DISCUSS. IF QUESTION OR APPOINTMENT FOR DELEGATION TO SEE THE PRESIDENT GENERAL WATSON, SECRETARY IN CHARGE OF PRESIDENTIAL APPOINTMENTS, ADVISES ME IT IS IMPOSSIBLE AT THIS TIME.114
Then, as if to reinforce the first telegram, Early finally got around to Yergan:
TELEGRAM RECEIVED. THE PRESIDENT’S SECRETARY, MR MARVIN MCINTYRE, HAS BEEN GIVING HIS TIME AND ATTENTION TO PROPOSALS AND REQUESTS SIMILAR TO YOURS. THEREFORE I SUGGEST YOU SHOULD SEE HIM. SCOPE OF MY WORK EMBRACES VERY DIFFERENT MATTERS.115
Early, McIntyre, and Williams, all southern “good ole boys,” held no brief for “colored” correspondents conspicuously connected to communist causes or colleagues; each wire added grist to their mill.116 Ten days later, on February 28, NNC president Yergan was back on the speaking circuit, this time stumping before a crowd at an All-Harlem People’s Conference at Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, where he went on record as backing full participation in the war effort among native, foreign-born, and Spanish-speaking Americans. The following Saturday, the weekly People’s Voice reported the event.117
In the interim, something else had been happening that bears mention. On March 2, the Executive Board of the Council on African Affairs held a business meeting about the present publicity campaign. Shortly after, Yergan wired Dick Wright, entreating him to “please telephone me immediately.”118 By now Richard Wright was widely known within the Left, having earned renown for novels, essays, reportage, short stories, and artful verse. Max continued to contact him at odd intervals, and they often crossed paths inside the circle of vanguard cultural workers who clustered around the Daily Worker and the New Masses, and elsewhere. Yergan was given promotional copies of Wright’s works and in return apprised Wright of various NNC and CAA jobs. The two shared something else. Neither knew that others were monitoring them. Wright’s biographers have recognized this, and this gives texture to their later treatments of the talented, tormented literary titan.
By March 1942, surveillance of Yergan was intensified by the intelligence community, which was probably influenced by his renewed contacts with the White House, closeness to Robeson, and highly public identification with critical views on the war, both domestic and international. Nor should one overlook the matter of his confidants. At that juncture—if not earlier—FBI agents ebulliently traded with other agencies—in this instance, opposite numbers in the navy—index cards on “subject[s]” whose “name[s] appear[ed] on a list of persons who are in varying degrees associated or sympathetic with the Communist Party.” These card were consistent with the preventive detention cards issued previously.119
The FBI never fully relinquished control over their files. While at times they donated copies of portions of these files to other agencies, it was vital to them to retain authority over all potential evidence for any possible future criminal investigations. Even at the risk of duplication of effort, Max’s Bureau file expanded. On March 19, the FBI noted that files bearing Yergan material were “reviewed for the purpose of making a custodial detention card in connection with the custodial detention program.” Then an arresting addendum: “Though the practice of making custodial detention cards has been discontinued, this information is being placed in the file for possible future use.”120
On May 27, Green H. Hackworth posted a letter to Sumner Welles, undersecretary of state for Latin America. Hackworth was responding to a press release dated May 25 that he had received from the Council on American Democracy, to which was appended an open letter to Acting President Ramon S. Castillo and the ambassador of Argentina in the District of Columbia, criticizing Castillo’s alleged pro-Nazism. Signers included Ruth Benedict, Adam Clayton Powell, Ferdinand Smith, Vito Marcantonio, and Max Yergan. Hackworth’s note to Welles told that Hackworth wondered whether this open letter was a possible violation of the Logan Act, Section 5, Title 18 of the U.S. Code.
This section of the statute made it illegal for a citizen of the United States, either directly or indirectly, to commence or carry on any verbal or written correspondence with any foreign government or an officer thereof “with an intent to influence the measures or conduct” of that government or officer in relation to “any disputes or controversies with the United States.” Conviction for this infraction brought a penalty of five thousand dollars and imprisonment of not more than three years. Upon closer consideration, however, Mr. Hackworth luckily relented, chillingly conceding that it was not worth it to bring up the matter to the Department of Justice lest it stir up adverse publicity. An expert who literally wrote the book on international law, Green Haywood Hack-worth had given a reprieve to Max and his fellow citizens of which they had not even the slightest inkling.121
On June 6, the People’s Voice ran a message headed “This Is Our War. Wipe Out Discrimination. Let Negroes Fight Equally.” Initially a press release issued by NNC president Max Yergan that was sent to President Roosevelt, this message read as follows: “The Council on African Affairs hails the decision of the US government to send a special economic mission to the Union of South Africa which will seek means to develop the vast material resources of that country to aid the war effort of the United Nations.” Yergan further informed the chief executive of his organization’s view that “the Council urges the appointment of Negroes to this mission which is headed by Colin Wickersham of the War Production Board, and Hickman Price of the Board of Economic Warfare.” The People’s Voice coverage of the story ended by stating that “Dr. Yergan pointed out that the government’s sending of such a mission would stimulate the whole war effort by bringing the resources of that country behind the United Nations.”122
In November 1942, the Daily Worker ran Max’s photo above a caption reading,
As an American Negro, and I know for millions of Negroes, I join you in hailing the Soviet Union on this its 25th anniversary. The normal, magnificent achievements of the Soviet people… draws forth the unstinted admiration of all honest men.…
But it is on the battlefields against the Hitler fascist beasts that the Soviet people have shown their truly great qualities. They have enveloped themselves in everlasting glory. As long as man can
write or sing he can have no greater theme than the matchless conduct of the fighting men and women of the heroic Red Army.123
As 1943 opened, NNC officer Edward E. Strong, employing the letterhead of the New York Committee to Aid the Southern Negro Youth Congress, wrote to Mary McLeod Bethune of the National Youth Administration (NYA) in reference to an upcoming NYA conference. Yergan, as one of the sponsors of the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC), had been interested in securing the support of Mrs. Bethune within the context of the CAA, though this looked unlikely in the short run, given her commitments both to the government and to her other roles as Bethune-Cookman College president and head of the National Council of Negro Women. Because she was a federal employee there were limits on the political alliances or causes with which her name was linked, especially in view of her alliance with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.124
Should matters change, however, Bethune might become available. She was known to have been willing to back a number of worthy race-related uplift ventures, particularly those connected in some way to education, self-improvement, and Negro empowerment. She had backed such efforts not only locally but also in Africa, for which she retained a soft spot due in part to an unrequited dream of being a missionary. Yergan gleaned some knowledge of her affection for Africa, which could come in handy; soon he drew ever closer to Mrs. Bethune.
On January 11, the Council on African Affairs held one of its regular meetings. Its most important piece of business was the sobering fact that the resignation of vital CAA administrator Mary van Kleeck had then become effective. Van Kleeck had been with the Council almost since its inception, having supported it through thick and thin. She had helped to formulate strategies and plan events, and, after Max’s ostensible destoolment of NNC president Asa Philip Randolph, strove mightily to mediate between Executive Director Yergan and an irreconcilable Ralph J. Bunche.
It is unclear whether van Kleeck’s resignation was influenced by factors other than the stated reason she provided her colleagues at the Russell Sage Foundation—that she’d been beset with too many competing claims upon her time, and, therefore, needed to cut back. Van Kleeck had herself been under surveillance, at least from 1941, if not earlier, due to her association with liberal and radical causes. The council was just one of several groups for this engagé woman. It is uncertain whether she may have been forced to step down by growing pressure emanating from within the intelligence community.
But the CAA had commandeered untold hours of her time and energy, and it is likely that she had private anxieties regarding the value of what she had been putting into the organization balanced against what it did and what the outcomes of its campaigns had been. If van Kleeck did discuss such anxieties with anyone, confidante Mary Fleddérus would have been a safe depository for her brooding fears. Of course, this could not stop acquaintances from advancing theories. At any rate, again it proved necessary to fill a CAA vacuum.
On Monday, January 25, Ralph W. Close, Carveth Wells, Yergan, Anson Phelps Stokes, and Edwin W. Smith addressed a town hall meeting concerned with the topic of “Africa and the World War.” Smith and Phelps Stokes had each known Yergan for years within the context of the philanthropic and missionary community, Smith having been a missionary himself, best known for his biography of Gold Coast educator and Yergan colleague James Emman Kwegyir Aggrey. Rev. Smith’s chronicle of the International Missionary Council’s 1926 Jerusalem meeting had pronounced Yergan’s positions praiseworthy. Described as an “author and anthropologist,” Dr. Smith was reported as having “outlined the history of Africa’s development,” while Yergan was, in the next day’s coverage of the event by the New York Times, said to have “listed the social, economic and political reforms that, he said, should be carried out for the benefit of the native population.”125
In early February, van Kleeck resigned. This had to affect Max deeply in view of all the aid she had provided him. Max soldiered on, however, inviting Langston Hughes to an NNC function, appearing alongside Adam Powell at a Negro People’s Committee rally on April 4, and participating in an Eastern Seaboard Conference on “The Problems of the War and the Negro People” on April 10–11 at Powell’s Abyssinian Baptist Church. Yergan spoke on a panel called “A People’s Victory—A People’s Peace.” In the audience were FBI informants who reported his opinions on the international situation this way:
Max Yergan, President of the National Negro Congress, related his experiences working among the African people and the evil policies practiced by the European nations upon these people. England, Belgium, and Italy were pointed out as being the chief oppressors of the Africans. Yergan predicted that the day is not far away when these people will shake off their chains of bondage and unite with their brethren overseas for greater democracy and good will. Yergan stated that Great Britain is reluctant to arm the natives, even when she is engaged in a bitter struggle for her existence. She is afraid that they will turn their guns on their oppressors—the British.126
Toward the close of April, Yergan wired President Roosevelt, in part to chide him and in part to exhort him to strengthen the new, fragile Fair Employment Practices Committee created to adjudicate racial grievances. Unaware of how the FBI and Army had been scrutinizing his speeches and photographic and written appearances in the pages of the Daily Worker, the National Negro Congress president pulled out the stops and stipulated,
MR PRESIDENT THE NATIONAL NEGRO CONGRESS HAS SINCE THE ISSUANCE OF YOUR ORDER 8802 AND THE CREATION BY YOU OF THE FAIR EMPLOYMENT PRACTICE COMMITTEE BEEN FULLY AWARE OF THE TREMENDOUS IMPORTANCE OF BOTH IN THE STRENGTHENING OF NATIONAL UNITY AND OUR WHOLE MACHINERY OF WAR PRODUCTION WE HAVE HOWEVER RECENTLY BEEN GREATLY ALARMED BY THE CHARACTER AND THE STRENGTH OF THE ATTACKS MADE UPON THIS VITALLY IMPORTANT COMMITTEE WE BELIEVE THAT UNLESS DRASTIC STEPS ARE TAKEN THE COMMITTEE WILL BE DISMEMBERED AND THE SPLENDID POSSIBILITIES IT HAS FOR CURTAILING DISCRIMINATION BASED UPON RACE CREED AND COLOR WILL BE NULLIFIED ALREADY SEVERAL OF ITS LEADING FIGURES HAVE RESIGNED AND THERE ARE RUMORS THAT A NUMBER OF OTHERS REGARD THEIR EFFORTS TO ACTIVIZE THE COMMITTEE AS USELESS UNDER PRESENT CONDITIONS WE ARE CALLING UPON YOU AS THE INITIATOR OF THE COMMITTEE TO IMMEDIATELY TAKE SUCH STEPS AS WILL PLACE THE COMMITTEE AGAIN UNDER YOUR DIRECT JURISDICTION SO AS TO GUARANTEE ADEQUATE FUNDS AND POWER WE BELIEVE THAT THE RETENTION OF EARL B DICKERSON OF CHICAGO AS A MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE IS ONE OF THE GUARANTEES OF THE PROGRAM ENUNCIATED BY YOU WILL BE CARRIED INTO LIFE THE REMNANTS OF THIS STRONG COMMITTEE MET IN WASHINGTON APRIL NINETEENTH LAST WE BELIEVE THAT THE ACTIVITIES OUTLINED AT THAT MEETING SHOULD BE CARRIED OUT IMMEDIATELY AND THAT THE REQUEST THAT THE RAILROAD HEARING POSTPONED BY THE WAR MANPOWER COMMISSION SHOULD BE RESTORED TO THE CALENDAR FOR THE SEVENTH AND EIGHTH OF JUNE NEXT MUST BE VIEWED AS OF THE UTMOST IMPORTANCE AND CARRIED OUT IT HAS BEEN RUMORED THAT DR WILLIAM EARL COLES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE HAS BEEN SLATED TO HEAD THE REORGANIZED COMMITTEE WE REGARD SUCH AN APPOINTMENT AS FRAUGHT WITH DANGER EFFORTS TO DESTROY THE COMMITTEE HAVE ADVERSELY AFFECTED THE MORALE OF THE NEGRO PEOPLE WE BELIEVE THAT IF THE PROPOSALS OUTLINED ABOVE ARE CARRIED THROUGH IT WILL STRENGTHEN THE UNITY OF THE NEGRO PEOPLE AROUND THE NATIONS PROGRAM FOR VICTORY.127
Two days later Ralph Johnson Bunche submitted his resignation from the Council.128
As indicated earlier, Harlem was Yergan’s base. After establishing himself in the Harlem Council of the National Negro Congress, the Harlem Section of the Communist Party, and the Harlem-headquartered People’s Voice, he must have been regarded by some as one of Harlem’s own. At the end of April he visited Chicago to speak on “The Darker Races in World Affairs” at Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable High School for a world service program sponsored by a centennial committee closely affiliated with the YMCA.129 In early July, an anonymous adversary sent to New York’s City Council a letter that eventually reached the desk of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. Its writer held that the People’s Voice
was the brain-child of Dr. Max Yergan, an avowed Communist, who two years ago was ouste
d from the faculty of City College for his Communist teachings. At first Yergan remained in the background of The People’s Voice. Now he sees no reason to hide his connection. He is boldly listed on the paper’s masthead as treasurer, and no issue of the paper goes to press until he and Powell approve the treatment and handling of every story.130
In the enervating opening days of August 1943, responding to years of grievances against police brutality, Harlem erupted in a paroxysm of rage that was exacerbated by the war. Following earlier precedents, notably in 1935, police violence, intercultural and social misunderstandings, and community rumors combined in volatile ways to create a perception of disturbance within the state apparatus. Since this occurred against a background of heightened fears about security brought on by the war, local authorities were being monitored by military and federal intelligence agencies. Of great immediacy was the fact that African-Americans in Detroit had risen up to protest war discrimination two months earlier, a series of events that had been watched closely both nationally and locally, not least by New York city’s mayor. Therefore, when Harlem exploded in the summer of 1943, the mayor’s office called on local leaders Ferdinand Smith, Hope Stevens, and Yergan to walk through the streets appealing for calm alongside him, using the radio as well.131
Even though Yergan’s role in the aftermath of the disturbances was documented as a palliative one designed to defuse communal tensions, his presence was construed as somehow contributing to the danger that both the FBI and Military Intelligence suspected still lingered in the area, and for which they considered him at least partly responsible.132 Blind to these intrigues, he went about his business, inviting Walter White to a Harlem Cultural Committee meeting133 and issuing a non-threatening nationwide appeal to La Guardia and thirty other mayors “to establish immediately local interracial committees.”134
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